Was donated some servers

[TechBoyJK]

The company I work for donated some servers to a non profit organization I'm involved with.

I was allowed to pick out the best machines for myself since I aligned the donation. The non-prof group asked that I then build them some basic workstations for surfing the web, checking email, and working with microsoft office. They have Windows XP licenses, so I just need to put together some machines and install XP pro.

I have plenty of 256MB pc133 ram chips.

I have some of the following boards to play with

500Mhz P3
500Mhz x 2 P3
600Mhz P3
600Mhz x 2 P3
700Mhz P3
700Mhz x 2 P3
800Mhz P3

My goal is to take 9GB drives (10,000rpm scsi drives), 1GB of ram, and some of these boards and put them in some of the spare tower cases I received with teh donation.

Question, would it be better to use single CPU 700/800Mhz machines or some of the 500x2 and 600x2 machines?

They won't be the fastest machines, but I figured wiht a gig of ram, they should function well without getting hung up often by having to page.

 

[Blazer]

you should know the answer to that question is, it wont make a dif.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: blazer
you should know the answer to that question is, it wont make a dif.

well, my guess is that they will all still be useable, albeit a bit sluggish, but functional for a non profit who just needs basic computer functionality.

 

[lxskllr]

P3s are pretty good chips, especially for your intended purpose. I'd use one of your boxes myself for a secondary machine :^)

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
P3s are pretty good chips, especially for your intended purpose. I'd use one of your boxes myself for a secondary machine :^)

I agree, but what I'm struggling to draw a conclusion on is a faster single cpu or slightly slower dual cpu's.

dual p3 500's vs a single 800mhz.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd go with the faster single. Less power consumption, and I don't think duallies will give that much of a boost for your intended purpose. I'm also not sure about the SCSI HDs. Aren't they loud?(I've never used on myself). I'm wondering if a CF card and adapter might not be a good, relatively inexpensive option for these boxes.

 

[heyheybooboo]

You would need XPpro to recognize the second cpu socket (or Win2k, NT workstation, etc)

Or maybe a 'Nix ...

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo


Or maybe a 'Nix ...

I don't want to be that guy that comes into a Windows thread and suggests Linux, but... :^P

A light Linux Distro would really fly on those machines. I don't know if the open source office apps would suit your needs, but that could be an alternative...

 

[Slugbait]

I believe a couple of Office 2007 apps (such as Excel) are multi-threaded, but does not take significant advantage of the second proc. Earlier Office releases are not multi-threaded. Min recommended proc for Office 2007 is 500, and I don't see anything else that would benefit from two or more procs, so...

Go with the faster procs. Those LVD drives are no slouches, but I would drop in two per box, then move the page file to the second drive, and make it 2 gigs/permanent...that will give the machines a good perf boost, and allow more room on the primary drives.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo


Or maybe a 'Nix ...

I don't want to be that guy that comes into a Windows thread and suggests Linux, but... :^P

A light Linux Distro would really fly on those machines. I don't know if the open source office apps would suit your needs, but that could be an alternative...

Well, they have Windows XP Licenses.

I also have some 4GB drives. I guess I could stick the OS on the 9GB drive and the swap on the 4GB drive.

I guess I can give them some 733-800Mhz x 1 cpu systems with 1gb of ram and the 9+4 drive setup. That should be fine for Internet, Email, and Office Apps. Hell, even GIMP should be functional. CPU speed wouldn't be noticable until doing actual rendering, which would just take longer I supposed. I remember using Photoshop on p3 500Mhz machines.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I remember using Photoshop on p3 500Mhz machines.

I remember using Photoshop 3.5 on a PII/350 with 256 megs. So there...

I guess I can give them some 733-800Mhz x 1 cpu systems with 1gb of ram and the 9+4 drive setup. That should be fine for Internet, Email, and Office Apps.

This config will be more than adequate for their needs.

 

[jamesbond007]

As a guy who has tinkered a lot with older computers and XP, I can say without hesitation that your single (albeit faster) CPU chips would run circles around the dual 500MHz computers. Not every app is written to take advantage of the second processor and even then, it's never 100% efficient, especially through Windows. (I kid!)

Good luck,
~Travis

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: jamesbond007
As a guy who has tinkered a lot with older computers and XP, I can say without hesitation that your single (albeit faster) CPU chips would run circles around the dual 500MHz computers. Not every app is written to take advantage of the second processor and even then, it's never 100% efficient, especially through Windows. (I kid!)

Good luck,
~Travis

Ditto, ditto, aaaaaand...ditto!

Well said, James!

What I would actually do: pull the second 600MHz and 700MHz processors from those two dual boards and install them on the two 500MHz systems (verify the chips are compatible). Then you have three 600MHz systems, three 700MHz systems and one 800MHz system, which maximizes each system's speed from the available resources.

Second, with ancient hdds like those I wouldn't keep two in each box (they're hot & noisy), just run a 9GB in each.

For very basic services (surfing/email/light office duties) these will be tolerable machines. If they are OEM system boards, could you get an original OEM XP disk for the installations? That would make things much easier (drivers & all included up front).

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: jamesbond007
As a guy who has tinkered a lot with older computers and XP, I can say without hesitation that your single (albeit faster) CPU chips would run circles around the dual 500MHz computers. Not every app is written to take advantage of the second processor and even then, it's never 100% efficient, especially through Windows. (I kid!)

Good luck,
~Travis

Ditto, ditto, aaaaaand...ditto!

Well said, James!

What I would actually do: pull the second 600MHz and 700MHz processors from those two dual boards and install them on the two 500MHz systems (verify the chips are compatible). Then you have three 600MHz systems, three 700MHz systems and one 800MHz system, which maximizes each system's speed from the available resources.

Second, with ancient hdds like those I wouldn't keep two in each box (they're hot & noisy), just run a 9GB in each.

For very basic services (surfing/email/light office duties) these will be tolerable machines. If they are OEM system boards, could you get an original OEM XP disk for the installations? That would make things much easier (drivers & all included up front).

That's a good idea about swapping cpu's.

About the OEM XP installs.. Well, they have XP Pro licenses, and I've already installed XP a few times. It seemed to have drivers for everything as is!

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
That's a good idea about swapping cpu's.

Thank you, thank you.

/deep bow

:laugh:

Seriously, XP handles multi-core pretty well but isn't as hot with multi-cpu. And most of the [basic] software you're going to be running won't be multi-threaded so it won't take advantage of multiple CPUs anyway. Go for the faster single cores on all boxes and the people will be better served. Plus, a single CPU uses less energy than two of em cranking away in there so they will save a little on the power bill every month (minor, but it's savings none-the-less, and if they're happy with ancient P3 systems, every penny counts).

About the OEM XP installs.. Well, they have XP Pro licenses, and I've already installed XP a few times. It seemed to have drivers for everything as is!

Coolness.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I also have some 4GB drives. I guess I could stick the OS on the 9GB drive and the swap on the 4GB drive.

I guess I can give them some 733-800Mhz x 1 cpu systems with 1gb of ram and the 9+4 drive setup. That should be fine for Internet, Email, and Office Apps. Hell, even GIMP should be functional. CPU speed wouldn't be noticable until doing actual rendering, which would just take longer I supposed. I remember using Photoshop on p3 500Mhz machines.

just to confirm, a backup box I have runs XP SP3, a P3 1.0 Ghz (EB coppermine), 640 megs PC133 RAM, couple old ATA 66 drives (OS on one, swap/acronis backups on the other) and it runs Office Pro 2007, Gimp, inet (firefox) fine. some flash sites can be slow but other than that its fine as a day to day machine. print previews on Office can be slow but not killer slow. keep it clean bloatware wise and its even fairly snappy.

 

[VirtualLarry]

P3 is still usable, but I prefer 1Ghz chips. I know some people still using them for web/email machines.

Though I :heart: my C2D rigs.